t is a blot upon the honor of a
great nation to think that she deliberately runs her colonies on opium.
No revenue, whether large or small, can be justified when coming from
such a source as this.

In all these blue books and official reports, the question of the Opium
Monopoly, as it is called, is dealt with freely. There is no attempt to
hide or suppress the facts. The subject is reported frankly and fully.
It is all there, for any one to read who chooses. How then, does it
happen that we in America know nothing about Great Britain's Opium
Monopoly? That the facts are new to us and come to us as a shock? One
is because of our admiration for Great Britain. Those who know--and
there are a few--hesitate to state them. Those who know, feel that it
is a policy unworthy of her. We hesitate to call attention to the
shortcomings of a friend. There are other reasons also for this
conspiracy of silence--fear of international complications, fear of
endangering the good feeling between the two countries, England and
America. Consequently England has been able to rely upon those who know
the facts to keep silent, either through admiration or through fear.
Also the complete ignorance of the rest of us has been an additional
safeguard. Therefore, for nearly a century, she has been running her
Opium Monopoly undisturbed. It began as a private industry, about the
time of the East India Company, but later on passed out of the hands of
private individuals into the department of Opium Administration, one of
the branches of the colonial government. But, loyal as we have been all
these years, we can remain silent no longer. The time is now rapidly
approaching when the two countries, England and America, are to become
closely united. How can we become truly united, however, when on such a
great moral question as this we stand diametrically opposed?

There is still another reason why we should break silence. The welfare
of our own country is now at stake. The menace of opium is now
threatening America, and our first duty is to ourselves. Little by
little, surreptitiously, this drug has been creeping in over our
borders, and to-day many thousands of our young men and young women are
drug addicts, habituated to the use of one of the opium derivatives,
morphia or heroin. The recent campaign against drug users, conducted by
the New York Department of Health, has uncovered these addicts in great
numbers; has brought them before us, made us see,